Where Melancholy Waters Lie
by IwouldifIcould
Summary: This wasn't some divine comedy. No, not in the slightest. It was more like a mortal tragedy; a horrible, horrible tragedy. SI/OC as Lust.


It's amazing, isn't it? How the world can move about without you, how the people in your lives can just continue on without a bother once you keel over? No matter the circumstances, out of the entire population of the planet, those people can sustain themselves without you, because despite the setback one meagre death can cause, the living must move forward. In the grand scheme of things, you are but a speck in the colossal thing we call a cosmos. You don't matter. Not unless you decide that you do.

She had been one such person. She had thought she mattered, or wished she did.

She had hopes. She had dreams. She aspired to be, just like anyone else. She had wanted to make a mark upon the world. Everything had been going her way. She had gotten through highschool, she had gone to college, and then to university. She had almost everything she had ever wanted. Friends, family, a home, a job; the definition of a comfortable life because she had finally conquered her demons. She had had it all. She had been a boring, regular, normal human being. Everything was fine.

Until she wasn't.

* * *

It was bright, she noticed once her eyes opened. She raised her hand over her eyes, squinting, propping herself on her arm. It was warm, the rays from the sun being absorbed into her dark clothes. She stretched out, spreading herself over the ground as if she was a cat, and yawned. But when had she been laying on the ground, her mind wondered. Last she remembered, she had been laying on a soft bed. Perhaps she fell off during the night. She laughed quietly to herself. That did sound like something she would do.

And when had she gotten outside? She had been in her room last. She let her eyes spy around the area. It wasn't blue. It wasn't green. This was no field. No, it was gray; shades of grays spreading across the floor to the tall walls, to the ceiling when she idly wondered why she thought it was bright in this depressing dark toned monochromatic environment.

This wasn't her room, this wasn't even outside. It was more like a tunnel or cave. That left her a question: where was she? Fear gripped her heart and squeezed it tight. She couldn't have been kidnapped, right? She wasn't like some princess taken by a dragon. Maybe if she was lucky she'd find enough gold in the dragon's horde to trade in and buy tickets to get home, she scoffed mentally.

Her breathing picked up, and she stood on her two feet, realizing she was wearing a sleeveless, low cut black dress, plunging down her neckline like a heart. She crossed an arm over her stomach, using her other hand to press against her temple. Ink black hair weaved through her fingers, and she tugged on the strands, thinking her hair had _never_ been black.

"What the hell is this…?" She said to herself in confusion. Almost immediately, she wrapped her hands around her neck. That was _not_ her voice.

Her attention was redirected to her hands, gloves as black as the dress she wore, trailing above her elbows. On the gloves were red horizontal lines, circles (nodes?) beginning from the back of her hand to a little bit before the end of the glove. Why did this look so familiar? Why did this feel so… wrong?

She looked down, picking at her dress. It pressed against her entire body, fitting against it, going around every curve, leaving little to the imagination. It was mortifying. Despite the fact no one was around, simply knowing she was wearing something so revealing was enough to set her face aflame. "Wait," she murmured, eyes coming to the top of her chest. "That's—"

"Lust, my lust," an old voice crooned, interrupting her thoughts.

Her head whipped around fast, searching for the source of such an eerie voice in the shadows. The gray tones of this earth did nothing to help the lighting. Her eyes soon found something like a mound of rock. A chair? Tenderly, as if she were an infant on new legs, she stepped around the few large cords and pipes leading to the mound, and there sat an intimidating man. His face was sullen and ashy, his eyes were a dangerous shade of red, and his hair which looked like it had once been a bright blond was desaturated to the point where you could call it cream. Finally, he wore a simple white robe, extending all the way down to his feet.

Her heart leapt out of her chest. "Father…" She recognized with barely concealed horror. But how? How was this happening? How was it possible?

The man, Father, no matter his mature and commanding presence, looked positively ecstatic, like a child on Christmas morning. As much as she wanted to deny his existence, she wouldn't have been surprised if he had clapped and jumped up and down like a giddy schoolgirl.

He rose from his throne, and went down to her level, walking around her in a circle as if she were his prey. She could do nothing to react for she was frozen on the spot. Then, once he was satisfied, he stopped in front of her and grinned. "My daughter, Lust," he spoke, testing the words coming forth from his mouth for the first time. "I have a daughter," he murmured excitedly. He let out a great laugh, "I have a daughter!"

She scrutinized his form, watching his every movement from his limbs to the expressions of joy forming on his face. _This must be a prank_ , her mind reasoned, _a long, elaborate prank._ Simply because there was no way this could be real.

He suddenly grabbed her by the hand, using the other to cup his mouth and amplify his voice. "Pride, please come meet your new sister!"

 _Pride…?_

From the darkest corner of the room, shadows seemed to spill out, stopping only a bit before her feet. Mouths, and eyes red as crimson slowly blinked open, and she felt sick to herself. "Hello, _sister,_ " the mouths hissed in unison. Footsteps echoed from where the shadows originated, and from out of it was a little boy, looking no older than twelve years of age, with ink black hair, violet eyes, and a tattered brown robe. He stepped towards her. "It's a pleasure," he said, holding out his hand, head tilted to the side as if testing her, to examine her reaction.

 _React or die,_ a voice screamed in the back of her head. Shaken from her stupor, she did her best to recover. "Likewise," she murmured, trying to keep herself from retching. He was challenging her, and whatever hell she was in, she refused to appear weak.

Pride's shadows leapt up from their connected hands and wrapped around her arm, tightening like a vice. Her arm felt like it was being hugged by a cobra, and although surprised, she refused to give him the satisfaction he was searching for on her face. They stared at each other. With their violet eyes, it was as though the both of them were looking into each other's souls.

The shadows gripping her arm retracted, and she let her arm slump. Pride gave her an almost pleased look and nodded. Without turning from her he spoke, "If that was all Father, I'll be heading back to the Rollan's. It was nice meeting you, _Lust._ " _Don't try anything funny,_ the silent yet horribly loud command hung in the air.

As Pride seemed to dissipate among the dark, Father turned back to her, placed a hand on her back, and guided her away, promising to acquaint her with her home.

* * *

By the time she was finally alone, even making sure Pride had truly left and that Father was on his throne of rock, she collapsed on the ground of a small tunnel.

It was hardly large in diameter. If she were to lay flat on her back, she would fit snugly from end to end. The tunnel's length wasn't much either, being about only five metres. It was damp, and wet, as if it had rained only earlier that day, water leaking through the tiny crevices of eroding rock. The puddles littering the ground were still fresh.

She gasped for breath, her lungs seeming to have finally collapsed from the length in which she held from breathing in petrification. Body quaking, she lifted her hand to look at it again, from her palm to the back where that red node sat listless. She looked once again to her legs, covered by the material of her dress, and she looked to her collarbone, to the tattoo resting meticulously above her sizeable bosom.

 _An Ouroboros,_ her mind had finally finished its thought. _A symbol for death and life, for beginning and end, an eternal cycle of creation and destruction._ She was reeling, reeling from everything she had discovered. She poked at the marking.

 _So if I have this symbol on my chest, then under it should be…_

She burst out laughing. She couldn't be serious with herself. The entire notion of this was ridiculous! She had to be dreaming, this was some sort of sick and twisted nightmare, the kind where one of her greatest fantasies had been turned on its head. That man had not been Father, that child had not been Pride, and she was most certainly not Lust.

 _This isn't real,_ she concluded.

 _ **Yer a loony one, aren't cha?**_

"Who said that?" She asked aloud, looking around. She could feel her head pounding. Father couldn't have come to check on her, could he?

 _ **Oh, shush, she's not crazy, merely delusional.**_

A migraine. It was just a migraine which made her head feel like it was being split into millions of tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces, pieces which wouldn't be reformed correctly at all after it was over. She pressed her hands against her temples, taking in deep breaths, kneeling so her forehead touched the cool rock ground.

 _ **Are you well?**_

 _Nononononono,_ she couldn't have gone mad already. This was just a dream. This wasn't real. If she pinched herself she would wake up, and she would be living in reality. The first thing she would do when she woke up was go for a jog, because God knows when she last had one of those, then she'd go grocery shopping, and maybe text her family she loved them all dearly cause you never know when you can never say it again and _this wasn't real._

 _ **What is this 'texting,' you speak of?**_

"I'm talking to myself," she said through gritted teeth. "I must be." There weren't voices playing in her head, and they weren't different, and they did not have different personalities. That would just be absurd. She was desperately grasping for straws, for evidence. She was going to deny this reality.

 _ **She's absolutely daft. Presented with the facts and all she does is refuse them. What a dunce.**_

Her lip trembled, and a heavy feeling weighed itself on her heart. Then, without warning, she slammed her head on the ground.

 _ **Whoa! The hell is she doing?!**_

Over, and over, and over. Her head was forced to the ground until it drew blood. After several times, she stopped, a blank expression resting on her face. Red lightning danced over her forehead where a particularly large gash had disappeared in only a moment, and blankness was replaced with irritation. "Shut. Up." She hissed, a finger pressed where the blood had flown, a tingling feeling leftover. She wiped it off, then took a look at her hand. Yes, that was blood. Yes, she had felt pain. Then she wasn't dreaming. But the voices had stopped. Thank God, they stopped.

She shivered, and noticed a puddle from the corner of her eye. She leaned over it and scanned her reflection. Violet eyes, blood red lips, and the stupid black hair. She shook, willing herself to cry. She couldn't deny forever, as much as she would have loved to try.

Lust, they had called her. And so she was.

* * *

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since she had found herself here in the lair of the homunculi, and as a homunculus no less. Two weeks to become accustomed to her situation. It had seen progress, no matter how minimal it was, and had seen her continuously go over the knowledge she had of this world. The first week however, wasn't something she was proud of. At least she had gotten over it a tiny bit.

She managed to come to an understanding of how her abilities as a homunculus worked. The weapons from her very fingertips which would later have her known as the Ultimate Spear were created from the carbon atoms in her body. Those carbon atoms would travel to her fingers, and she would then be able to extend them and strengthen them to be diamond. Depending on how she then chose to arrange the atoms, her blades could be thin, thick, or as flexible as she wanted.

However, in arranging those atoms, there could be a certain weakness associated with each form of blade. Obviously, the thinner blades would be more brittle, and therefore easier to break off, which strategically she wouldn't want in an actual fight. It would just leave her vulnerable for the time needed to regenerate her fingers. The thicker blades could end up too dull and wouldn't be as agile because of their weight. If she made her blades too flexible, then they wouldn't be able to pierce. However, she found it better to stay balanced as possible in all three of those factors. It was finding that balance that proved difficult.

At least, that was her understanding of it. She hadn't yet managed to create a blade longer than a few centimetres, and she hadn't managed to understand how she could adjust the arrangement of carbon atoms without a visual of the atoms moving within her body, but it seemed sound to her. Theory she had, practice she had not.

It helped, being a more powerful human, that was. Her new body's physiology allowed her to be faster, stronger, and more durable than she had been before as Lee Scapini. In a way, it was pleasant. She didn't have to work to have the strength she had, and she didn't have to bother with nourishing herself or recharging her brain. She missed food; at times it felt like she was having withdrawals. She did sleep from time to time, if only to feel the refreshment it provided.

And though she had somehow managed to cope in the better part of two weeks, a part of her desperately wanted out. She wanted no involvement with this sick and twisted world. It was incredibly dangerous, and the blood which was going to be spilled within the coming years was gruesome, especially when she thought about her relapse. _But,_ her hope screamed, _you can be a saviour! Think of all the bad you can change!_

No matter how true that could be, especially considering her position as Lust, she wasn't suicidal. Making a stand too early could end up with her melted down and taken back into Father. Making a stand too late could result in something _horribly_ undesirable.

 _ **You're overthinking it, dear. Take it one step at a time.**_

And then there were the voices in her head. She felt she had discovered far too late they were more than just voices. She wished they were simply that. At least that way it would have been less sickening.

Souls. Human souls. The very same which made up a Philosopher's Stone, the one she possessed. Hundreds of thousands of them crammed into the little thing she had, courtesy of Father.

She sighed, looking on at the scratched walls of her tunnel. "Thank you, Catharina." She murmured, placing a hand delicately over the markings. Tallies, making up fourteen days. Perhaps one day there would be three hundred and sixty five.

Though souls strong enough like Catharina could speak to her consciously having not been fully assimilated into the stone, she heard the unconscious buzzing of weak souls who called out acutely for familiarity. They called for family, friends, pets, anything. Their cries had been more than enough to make her weep at first, but now it was just background noise. It scared her, how insensitive to them she had become. But it was also souls like Catharina who gave her the determination to move forward.

 _ **Do you believe you can ignore them? Listen. You're the reason they suffer.**_

"I know."

Then, there were souls like Jan. Strong enough to speak, and strong enough to hold onto unbridled hate. He couldn't be blamed. In the end, they were all fuel for the stone. For each action she made, fuel was used, the reason she kept the use of her spear to the absolute minimum. She didn't want them to suffer. If that wasn't a horrifying example of a butchered equivalent exchange, she didn't know what was.

She gripped her wrist, hoping to practice once more ( _I'm sorry,_ she whispered), but a sharp call for her had her distracted. It had been Father calling. She supposed the times of avoiding him in favour of thinking had to come to an end at some point.

It was time to start doing something.

* * *

"I do hope you've settled in well enough, Lust," Father said, folding his hands in front of him. "I believe I've given you substantial time to do so."

"Of course," she inclined her head into a grim nod. "More than enough, in fact," her lips curled into a small macabre grin. ( _Please, bear with me,_ she pleaded) She let her fingertips sharpen and extend as far as she could exert it. ( _Stopscreamingstopstopstopplease_ )

Though she expected his face to be glowing with pride (after all, she _was_ his daughter), his expression held no mirth. He looked bored, as if making her fingers actual weapons were an everyday occurrence.

Father sighed, pressing his fatigued face against his hand. "Is that really all you've managed to accomplish?"

She faltered, her fingers returning to their original form. Though inwardly furious, this man had the necessary power to take her down easily, and she hadn't yet mastered her spear in order to defend herself. "I— yes," she stuttered, voice quieting with each word, "that's all I've been able to do at the moment."

He hummed and closed his eyes as if weighing his options. "No matter," he muttered, displeased but willing to adjust. Once he opened them, those red monstrosities were trained on her fiercely, not straying far from her slit pupils. "Lust, I require a steady influx of Philosopher's Stones flowing throughout the earth's crusts to proceed with our plans."

 _Our?_ She thought, affronted. No one's plans here were anyone's but Father's. Even so, too fearful to speak up, she nodded, plump lips spread into a thin line.

"At the moment, there are already trails of Philosopher's Stones leading back to our base of operations, but not nearly enough that we can move on. What I need is for you to find alchemists to create the stones." He paused. "Do you understand?"

Mentally, she scowled. He was treating her like a child, a simpleton. She didn't appreciate that, not at all. She nodded again. "Yes, Father." But if he needed her to tempt alchemists to create those red abominations, then…

"You need me to travel the country."

"Alchemists are sparse and widespread," he confirmed. "However, this is all I ask of you. Find alchemists and make the stones. I trust you can manage that?"

She looked down to her feet. All of this was happening so quickly, and only several days ago she denied her existence in this plane of living, hell, even now it was hard to accept. And now she was supposed to get the stones? Where would she even begin? Why would she want to in the first place?

 _ **Accept the offer!**_

 _Victor?_

 _ **Think about it! This bastard's sayin' to travel the country, right? Do that an' get as far away from him as possible!**_

Father was looking down at her impatiently, waiting for her final reaction. Then, acceptance in her eyes, she spoke. "When do I start?"

There was the mirth she had been seeking. It wasn't much, but satisfying enough just to get a glimpse of a smirk. "Get the papers on my table. They include all the information needed to make a Philosopher's Stone from ingredients to alchemic circles. Once you've determined where several alchemists are based, I want you to report back to me. You start right away."

"Yes, Father."

Going through the papers, and looking at the things Father had strewn about on his rather large sized desk, Lee, or Lust, realized no matter when it was she got out of this damned underground, it wouldn't be soon enough.

No. To get away from this pit, it would never be soon enough.

* * *

 **So that's the first chapter!**

 **Let me know what you guys think! I'm probably going to have to bounce between this and another story of mine, so I'd really appreciate feedback!**

 **Reviews are love and motivation!**


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